I have your balled-up flannel 
in the backseat of my car STILL.
The Edges are torn and several buttons are gone.
You wrote your name in a patch of window fog,
and I kept that TOO. 

I kept you, ALL OF YOU. 

You have a home in my heart, and in my car,
and in the dark spot under my bed where your
holey sneakers never came back from.

Most of all, you have a home with Me.

-----------------------------
a non-sonnet about an echo......

Where did you put it all?
Where did you put The Pain? The Doubts? The Resentment?
The Terror????

Did you wad it up into a ball and stick in the back seat of
my car?

No, you let it grow and grow, and it swallowed you whole.

Right-handed child that tried to write lefty. Stolen kisses
behind the shed, Daddy's whiskey hot on your lips. Brunette
Children made to look blonde, more fair-waspish- lining up behind
you like tiny soldiers of Mother's mercy----and you, You 
couldn't make those dark roots disappear fast enough. 

I won't forget that. I swear to You, I WON'T.


You loved to eat mangos with your hands------someone said that,
but I knew that already.......

"Where'd you put your eyeglasses? How many times has it been since
you lost them in a week?" Too busy swimming in your mind,
and counting lazy ducks in the pond-------Turn that down before
she calls the cops......."I can't roll them like you do, because
my fingers are not as graceful."-------

SHHHHHHHHH------don't wake him, he's had a rough day- Week, Night,
Year, Life.......I love you, Mr. Grey, even though you didn't think
that I should.